REDUCING CUSTOMER EFFORT WHILE CONTACTING THE CUSTOMER SERVICE INDUSTRY

Abstract

Reducing customer effort by controlling the number of interactions between the customer and the customer support team and by encouraging self help by user to user forums and discussion blogs, The Company here in consideration is Adobe Systems and the department is the technical support team. As consumers continue to move their conversations and business transactions online, companies must pick and choose the customer service and support tools appropriate for the customer experience. While social media support is getting a lot of attention these days, it is important to remember the more traditional service channels to connect and engage with customers. With more and more of us becoming hooked on smart devices and using interactive platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instant Messaging (IM), the requirement to deliver service via multiple channels has increased. Connected consumers expect consistently high service, regardless of which channel they use and when they choose to interact – something contact centers need to consider when evaluating their customer effort and multichannel strategies. Yet this is not without its challenges. As multichannel contact management expands, agents are required to handle several different communication paths. Some agents, however, may be unsuited to particular channels or multi- tasking, which could lead to increased queue lengths or an irate Tweet going viral. Whatever channel they use, customers make contact with a goal in mind. It makes sense then that making it easier to achieve this goal will help retain loyal customers and improve the likelihood of them making a repeat purchase. To address the rise in omni channel engagement, organizations should map their customers’ journeys with them to limit the effort they have to make in navigating the contact centre. This should involve a full review of all their channels of communication, taking into consideration how the number of times they make contact and the channels they use (e.g. phone, web chat,email, social media) affect their customer effort scores. To boost speed and free- up agents, low-effort channels such as automated services can be provided for straightforward transactions such as card payments. Similarly, repeat questions should be avoided for customers calling by phone where they are passed between agents, which contact centre users frequently say contributes to a negative experience.